Written by Mungiu, Fjord follows Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu, a Romanian engineer and Norwegian nurse played by Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, respectively. Set in their modest ways, the couple tries to settle into their lives in Norway, having moved there after the death of Mihai’s parents to be closer to Lisbet’s family. Raising their five children with a conservative ethos, they don’t quite mesh with the liberal community that surrounds them. But their eager kids still build close friendships with the children of their progressive neighbors, Mats and Mia Halberg, a development that further underscores the two families’—and consequently, the two belief systems’—political and practical differences.
Stan and Reinsve as Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu —Courtesy of Neon
Joining TIME on Zoom recently, Mungiu emphasizes that “the film is fictional. It’s not a reenactment associated with any one particular case.” Still, there were a number of real-life court cases that intrigued him as a storyteller with a journalism background. Chief among them was that of the Bodnariu family, who occupied international headlines for several months after they were separated from their five children in November 2015. Pentecostal parents Ruth and Marius were accused of domestic violence, with worldwide protests criticizing what dissenters called harsh and hasty steps taken by Norwegian social workers without proper evidence. In Romania, one of the indirect results of the wildly popular case went as far as a constitutional referendum in 2018 that aimed to alter the definition of a traditional family and prevent same-sex marriages. (The referendum eventually failed due to low turnout.)
Upon deciding to write Fjord, Mungiu read everything he could online, moving to Norway for several extended periods to investigate the country’s child-protection laws and relevant cases on the ground. His process involved talking to several families involved with child protection cases and their relatives, as well as journalists who covered cases like the Bodnarius’, court interpreters, police officers, NGO representatives, and various different religious groups. “Finally, I talked to Barnevernet about these cases in general,” he adds. “They were willing to also give details about how things have changed.”
The audience is on trial too
Vanessa Ceban, at the piano, plays eldest daughter Elia —Courtesy of NeonTo accentuate the connection between Fjord’s searching themes and lean visuals, Mungiu purposefully embraced long shots and continuous takes beginning during the scripting phase, in order to fully immerse the audience in the conflicting world of the characters in a neutral fashion. Indicating that he avoids many of the mainstream filmmaking methods that he finds manipulative, “I don't use anything [distracting] within the scene,” Mungiu says. “I don't use coverage. I don't use music. I don't have funny angles. The camera doesn't move unless it follows a movement in the shot. I try to do this in a sober way, just with the actors and their emotions. I think it's a respectful way of telling the audience, ‘You are adults like we are, you are as smart as I am, so feel free to see [for yourself] what's more important in this shot, or who the main character is.’”
He remembers an anecdote about the real inhabitants of the two houses he uses in the film for the Gheorghius and Halbergs, who were in fact not communicating with one another. That all changed shortly after the production convinced one of them to allow the film crew to shoot in his house. Mungiu recalls the homeowner saying, “I will let you, but my neighbor is very grumpy. He hasn’t talked to me in the 10 years that we have been neighbors, so you are going to have problems with him." But when the crew contacted the owner of the other house, they found that he was quite open-minded. “We asked him, ‘Do you have a conflict with your neighbor?’ He said, ‘No, but none of us have started a conversation, so I let him enjoy his privacy.’ At the end, they were communicating normally, and we had a very good relationship with both of them.”
With this discovery, Mungiu eventually eliminated various scenes in Fjord which would have insinuated that Norwegian people saw the world in a more rational way only because they weren’t religious. “Making decisions on rational grounds is of course a very good thing to do,” Mungiu explains. “But [there is also] this need of belonging to something bigger than just [rationality] that we all feel. Some people still long for the discomfort that there's something bigger than them. And as long as this belief places them on the right side of the world through [tolerance] and [inclusivity], I think we should be tolerant to it.”
“You shouldn't answer radicalization with radicalization”
Sebastian Stan in Fjord —Courtesy of NeonMungiu cautions against the ongoing ideological war that he says is moving in the wrong direction across the globe. “I don't want to be preachy, but hopefully there's something that stays with you after you watch a film like Fjord,” he reflects. “I took the risk of talking about things that people need to listen to even if they’re not nice. Don't kill the messenger. It's time to start to have a dialogue and this is what cinema can do.”
Hence then, the article about the real child protection cases that loosely inspired fjord was published today ( ) and is available on Time ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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